# Incidents: insult and defamation laws in Europe Each incident is a dated action by a government, an official, a regulator, a court or a legislature that limited journalists' ability to gather or publish news. The number of entries reflects the depth of this record, not the severity of a country's conduct. Filters: country, continent, tactic, stage, from, to, level, actor, leader, outlet, outcome, source_kind, has_case, plus q, sort (date, date_asc, country, tactic, relevance), per_page (up to 100), page and view (table or cards), as query parameters. 6 incidents match this view. - 15 February 2023: [Russia: journalist Maria Ponomarenko is sentenced to six years for reporting on a Mariupol strike](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2023-russia-ponomarenko-fake-news-sentence). A Russian court sentenced journalist Maria Ponomarenko to six years in prison and a five-year ban on journalism under a law criminalizing "false information" about the military, after she published a Telegram post about an airstrike on a M… - 8 February 2023: [Belarus: journalist Andrzej Poczobut is sentenced to eight years for inciting hatred](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2023-belarus-poczobut-eight-year-sentence). A Belarusian court sentenced dual Belarusian-Polish journalist Andrzej Poczobut to eight years in prison on charges of inciting hatred and calling for sanctions, and he was freed three years later as part of a multi-country prisoner exchan… - 4 March 2022: [Russia criminalizes 'fake' reporting on the military, up to 15 years in prison](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2022-russia-criminalizes-fake-war-reports). Russia's parliament passed a law criminalizing the publication of information about the military that contradicts official statements, with penalties up to 15 years in prison, prompting Novaya Gazeta to pull its Ukraine war coverage and th… - 30 March 2020: [Hungary criminalizes false coronavirus information and grants Orban decree powers](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2020-hungary-coronavirus-fake-news-law). Hungary's parliament passed an emergency coronavirus law allowing prison terms of up to five years for spreading information the government deemed false or distorted about the pandemic, and let Prime Minister Viktor Orban rule by decree fo… - 20 October 1998: [Serbia's Public Information Act lets courts fine independent newspapers into financial danger](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1998-serbia-public-information-act-fines). Serbia's parliament passed a Public Information Act allowing courts to levy same-day fines against newspapers for vaguely defined offenses against the state's interests, and independent papers were fined far more often and more heavily tha… - April 1938: [Franco's Spain requires state permission to be a journalist under a wartime Press Law](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1938-spain-franco-press-law). While Spain's civil war continued, the Nationalist government led by Francisco Franco enacted a Press Law in April 1938 requiring government permission to found a newspaper, work as a journalist or direct a paper, alongside continued pre-p… Download this view. CSV, JSON or Markdown. CC BY 4.0; credit "The War On News, thewaronnews.com". - CSV: https://thewaronnews.com/incidents?continent=europe&tactic=insult_and_defamation_laws&view=cards&format=csv - JSON: https://thewaronnews.com/incidents.json?continent=europe&tactic=insult_and_defamation_laws&view=cards - Markdown: https://thewaronnews.com/incidents.md?continent=europe&tactic=insult_and_defamation_laws&view=cards - Incidents (RSS): https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/feed.xml - Incidents (Atom): https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/atom.xml - Incidents (JSON Feed): https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/feed.json - All incidents (CSV): https://thewaronnews.com/incidents.csv Source page: https://thewaronnews.com/incidents?continent=europe&tactic=insult_and_defamation_laws&view=cards. The War On News, CC BY 4.0.